The Startup Podcast · 2026-05-25 · 57 min
Most founders set out to build something that matters: a company that’s aligned with their mission, now and forever. But what if the very systems we use to build ‘real’ companies are the thing that corrupts them? In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Silicon Valley legend Eric Ries author of the era-defining 'The Lean Startup', founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and now the author of a provocative new book, 'Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great'. Eric makes the case that corruption is a structural problem, rather than a failing of the people themselves. He walks Yaniv through the ‘financial gravity’ that pulls good companies away from their founders' purpose, and the governance ‘fortresses’ that a small handful of outlier companies (from Costco to Novo Nordisk to Anthropic) have used to stay great.
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